The Smell of Rotting Flesh
by ToriTC198
Summary: Sequel to The Smell of Blood. The Hale pack is closer than ever just in time for the reports of zombies to start filtering in. They have to figure out how to fight zombies at the same time as dealing with the refugees (who are not always friendly) that have already been displaced by zombies. Derek isn't honestly sure which is a bigger threat, the zombies or the people.


AN: So here it is, the first chapter in my sequel to The Smell of Blood. Sorry it took so long to get the first one up. I was finishing up summer quarter so I had finals to do.

* * *

"Plague victims appear to be highly contagious. Contact with blood or saliva is deadly."

"New York has been decimated."

"The Midwest has spotted victims coming from the East. Do not engage them, they are contagious."

"Symptoms within hours. Death within a day. Revived minutes later."

Stiles turned off the TV and looked around the room at the unreadable faces of his pack. At first when the reports had started they had thought it was some kind of joke. An elaborate hoax. Then when the news kept coming in and getting worse they had started to face facts. Something very wrong was happening and it was heading towards California quickly.

The pack had torn apart the beastiary looking for clues and found nothing. They had no idea what was causing this or how to stop it. Stiles caught Derek staring at him again and he gave the man a reassuring hand squeeze. He knew that Derek was worrying more every day about what this new threat would mean, especially to the human members of the pack. In particular he worried about what it would do to Stiles. Fragile human that he was it seemed that yet again he would be in danger.

Taking charge, Derek stood up and addressed the scattered group. "Right now, things are looking pretty bad. We need to get ready for whatever is about to hit us and we need to do it now. That means stockpiling food and water. Weapons for those who need them," He looked to Allison as he said this. "Whatever it takes, we will stick together."

"How do we defend ourselves from humans though?" Scott piped up. "We don't want to hurt them."

"We're defending ourselves against people who used to be human. If the reports are right they stopped being human the moment they got infected."

Stiles gave a half-hearted grin as he added, "Yeah. They're not human. They're zombies." He sank lower into the couch and muttered, "To think I used to think a zombie apocalypse would be cool. Real life is way worse than a video game."

Allison spoke next, "What about my dad?"

"I've taken care of that." Derek replied with a nod. "Chris, Melissa, John and Deaton will be moving into the house with us later this week. We will meet this fight and make it through just like we have every other fight."

The pack gave a weak cheer but their enthusiasm was dampened by the knowledge of what they were facing.

* * *

Stiles carried yet another box from his dad's cruiser to the house. This one was filled with canned beans. Joy. He added it to the growing pile of supplies and then he took a step back to admire their stash. It was large enough to almost pass for a mountain and nearby lay an arsenal of weapons and ammunition courtesy of Chris. It helped to have a hunter/weapons dealer on their side.

The first few sightings in California had seeped in about two days ago. Any day now could be the day that the pack encountered their first undead enemy. Derek had been training practically non-stop with his wolves and Chris had been giving all the humans a crash course in all the best guns he owned. Stiles was proud to say he was getting good at all of them.

As he headed to grab the last box of food for the day, Stiles saw movement out of the corner of his eye. His heart leapt into his throat and he dropped the box as he spun to look at the intruder straight on. Quite suddenly Derek was beside him, called by the brief stutter of fear in Stiles' heart-beat. A soft chuckle escaped the figure in the woods and she emerged with her hands up in a gesture of peace.

"Relax guys. I'm not a glazer. Just a refugee heading further West."

"As nice as it is to know you're not a glazer… what the hell is a glazer?" Stiles asked.

"Glazer. It's what we started calling them. Their eyes glazing over is the best way to spot them so we started calling 'em that. Also known as zombies, undead, walkers, draggers, corpses, and biters." She stepped closer to the pair and Derek subtly shifted so that he was between her and Stiles. "You seem a friendly bunch. Name's Kendra, I caught the scent of a pack up here and thought I'd drop in."

Stiles gaped at her and with a grin she flashed her bright blue eyes at him.

Derek just inquired in a cautious voice, "You're from further East, so can you tell us much about these… glazers?" The word seemed odd on his tongue.

"I'd be glad to share for the price of some food."

A few minutes later Kendra was devouring some instant oatmeal as she leaned casually against Stiles' Jeep. Derek hadn't let her go inside the house.

"So. Where should I start?" She pondered to herself. "Well, I'm from a pack in Colorado. We got hit about a month ago. Glazers stumbled into our woods and did some good damage to my pack. The virus doesn't kill us, but it hurts a hell of a lot. Our healing is able to fight it off eventually. However, the glazers are stronger than humans and they can do enough damage to a wolf to kill it without ever even inflicting the virus."

"But you can kill them, right?" Derek interrupted.

"Yeah. By severing their heads or blowing their brains out. Basically you need to get the brain to stop shooting signals to their bodies. Pretty stereotypical zombie movie really, it's almost a disappointment. Anyway, best way is removing their heads. It's quick and dirty but it works. Also, blowing their brains out causes a lot of noise and next thing you know you'll be crawling in glazers. For a werewolf it's pretty simple, you just got to rip the head right off. Just do it without getting bit and you're good. Get bit and you'll be laid out for hours with the pain. Not getting bit is where the humans come in. I see you already have at least one and I smell others around here too. That's good. They're great shields."

"Umm. What?" Stiles yelped.

"Kendra ignored him and continued addressing Derek. "Given the choice between a wolf and a human, the glazers will always go for the human. Something about them is more appealing or something. It's good to keep some humans around because they can distract the glazers while the wolves attack or escape. The rest of my pack is a few miles behind me traveling with a nice supply of humans to shove towards any glazer we encounter." The perky attitude she had started to fade a little as she took in the dark look on Derek's face. "Oh. Sorry. Are you attached to your humans? I didn't realize." She didn't sound very apologetic and the look she shot in Stiles' direction made his skin crawl.

"I think it's about time you got off my land." Derek ground out between clenched teeth. "You are not welcome here anymore."

"Whoa dude, chill. I didn't realize you were a pack that liked humans. I said I was sorry, can we just move on?"

"No." He growled. "Get off my property and away from my pack."

"Fine. Asshole." Kendra turned on her heel and retreated back the way she had come.

Derek glared after her the entire way and then he stomped back into the house leaving Stiles to pick the forgotten box back up off the ground and carry it inside. Erica was standing next to Derek nodding as he ranted to her about their visitor.

"Hey." Stiles interjected. "Much as I agree with whatever opinion you have of her, she did give us some good info. We know that they're drawn by noise, they prefer humans to wolves, and that the virus doesn't affect you guys the way it affects humans. That's all good stuff to know. For one thing, it tells me that we humans need to focus more on the crossbows, knives and swords and less on the loud guns."

"No."

"Uh, why not, Derek? Do you want us to instead summon them all with huge noises?"

"Work with the crossbow. Nothing else."

"One weapon is pretty pathetic. I feel I should at least be better prepared than that."

Derek looked like he was struggling for the right words to say but after a few moments he just gave up and walked away. Erica shrugged at Stiles' to let him know that she was just as confused as he was.

* * *

Kendra signaled to her brother, Thomas, to make his move and she crouched in the shadow on the other side of the clearing. Thomas tilted his head back and let out a loud, long howl before he took off full speed into the woods. The effect was instant. The soft snores that had been audible only seconds ago stopped and the sound of five wolves and seven humans jolting out of bed echoed in her ears. There was a hushed meeting of the wolves as they discussed what to do.

"Let's check it out."

"Why? We should stay here where it's safe."

"If that was from Kendra's pack, we should be making sure they stay well clear of our land."

"So what do we do?"

"We check it out and we make sure the rest the pack is awake and armed."

There were noises of weapons being loaded and prepped and a few hurried goodbyes and then five transformed wolves barreled out the front door heading towards where Thomas' howl had sounded.

Kendra looked over her shoulder at the other eight members of her pack and she gave a thumbs up. Slowly and quietly they crept up to the house. Walking stealthily around the house, Kendra located an open window and swiftly tossed a small round object through the gap. Within moments the object started to smoke and the fumes pouring off of it spread.

Melissa was the first to notice the smoke crawling across the floor towards them. She gave a startled shout and the rest the pack turned to watch as the sickly green cloud pressed in on them. Before any of them had time to even get to the door, the smoke had filled the room. Deaton accidently inhaled first and he dropped to the floor a second later. Lydia's gasp was what did her in as she too took a lungful of the smoke. Stiles scrambled to get to Lydia, still trying to hold his breath. He got a grip on her arm and started to drag her out of the room but before he even reached the door he had to take a breath and the smoke took him down. Chris, John, Melissa and Allison were all already on the ground.

It was all over in less than five minutes. The smoke dissipated and Kendra led her pack into the room scattered with bodies. "Grab 'em, guys." She said gleefully. "Never would have thought I'd find so many shields here, and ones that know how to fight too. Maybe they'll survive longer than the last batch." With one last sweep to make sure all the humans were in her pack's possession, Kendra retreated after her family and left the Hale House behind her.

* * *

AN: Well I said it would be a zombie fic, but I never said zombies were the only bad guys. What's going to happen to the human parts of the Hale pack now?


End file.
